Sitting there
with my kippah, pad and paper ready to write in the dark theater,
I did not look like a regular filmgoer to this highly controversial
movie, but I accepted the stares I was given. I saw this film because
a detailed analysis had to be made for the religious community, and
with my ongoing anti-missionary activities, I felt obligated and prepared
to see it. An informal but detailed review of this film follows.

Mel Gibson's
film opens with white letters across a black background, a corrupted
and erroneous translation of Isaiah 53:8, "He was wounded
for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities. By his
stripes we are healed." The correct translation of Isaiah
53:8 is, "As a result of the transgression of my people, they
were afflicted." Notice the correct translation is plural, they,
not He. The Hebrew word for "they" appears over 40 times
in the original version of Isaiah, but the Christians have
purposefully mistranslated it, to fit their purpose. This is nothing
surprising, as a Christian 4th century Bishop named Gregory had introduced
this idea of lying-he wrote, "A little jargon is all that is
necessary to impose on the people. The less they comprehend, the more
they admire."

The camera opens
with Jesus and some of his followers in a dark shady garden, Jesus
is crying and surrounded by his men who are comforting him. A sudden
shatter of the darkness is interrupted by hook noses Jews with dark
circles under their eyes, dressed in warrior gear, who proceed to
savagely beat Jesus to the ground. A particular theme of the film,
is while Jesus is being trampled, the filmmaker cuts away to "Dream"
sequences, where you see a healthy viral Jesus doing all the things
which are typically associated with him. As Jesus is being beaten
in the garden, he dreams he was with Mary. In the dream he had just
completed building what can only be described as a modern dining room
table, one which looks as if it came from Sears. He finishes it, drinks
some water, and giggles with Mary (who calls him Yeshua) and--flash,
the dream ends, and he is starting to look like bloody pulp, as the
Jews continue to beat him in that dark misty garden.

A group of Sadducee
Kohanim, the Jewish Priests make their way to the beating site, see
Jesus, and have him brought to their courtyard, a stone structure
surround by high walls. It's dark outside, and in the courtyard, the
Kohanim are questioning the chained Jesus. As they do this, the Jewish
peasant onlookers are shouting at Jesus, taunting him, and spitting
on him. The Jewish leaders are depicted as men with hook noses, scraggly
beards, full lips and dark saggy eyes, physical attributes taken right
from the 'Stuermer Books', the 1938 Nazi children's manuals on 'how
to recognize a Jew.' As the Kohanim interrogate Jesus, Judas Iscariot
is cowering in a corner, and is being taunted by little Jewish children
who somehow morph into demons-only to then revert back to children.
Soon after Judas runs into the desert where hangs himself from a tree.
What is not surprising, is that Mel Gibson presents the courtyard
of the Kohanim as a dirty filthy place, a disgusting unclean area
where men and women mingle, where the Kohanim mingle with the lowly
of paupers.

Jesus is then
dragged in chains by the Sadducees (Jews) to Pontius Pilate, the Roman
governor of Judea standing on a raised platform above the Kohanim.
The Roman yells down to the Jews, "Do you always punish before
you judge?" The shifty eyed Kohanim are sharply dressed in what
look like some sort of dark royal vestiges, standing shoulder to shoulder
among an immense crowd of women, children and men dressed in rags.
The crowd of ragged Jews shouts, crucify him! crucify him! crucify
him! Pilate was reluctant to condemn Jesus, and said he will be turned
over to King Herod (the Roman Jewish puppet leader) for his consideration.
Herod was depicted as an fat, hook nosed Jew, who wanted nothing to
do with Jesus. As a matter of fact, all the Jewish leaders looked
fat, while the Romans looked lean and trim.

Jesus is then
given back to Pontius Pilate and presented to the Jews again. The
Kohanim are shouting on the top of their voices, crucify him! The
crowd of Jews erupts into a fervor, all blaring, crucify him! crucify
him! The Romans give the Jews a choice. They say they release one
person a year, and they can let the Jew known as Barabbas (a murder)
go, or they can let Jesus go. The Jews elect to let Barabbas go free,
and chant to crucify Jesus. Barabbas is set free into the crowd, and
the Kohanim tell the Romans that Jesus was a blasphemer, because he
proclaimed himself the Mashiach (Messiah). The Jewish crowd
again starts chanting, crucify him! crucify him!

The Romans say
they will punish Jesus, but this only angered the Jews who continued
screaming for his death. The Romans drag Jesus into a courtyard where
they handcuff him to a concrete post and hammer him with sticks, whips
and sharp metal hooks in a most brutal manner. While Jesus' blood
is sprayed across the face of his torturers, and while he moans in
agony, Mel Gibson has placed the Sadducee Kohanim standing right there
watching-along with Mary, Jesus' supposed mother. With no unusual
expression on their face, they watch the beating. As they watch, a
demon slips mysteriously (but purposefully) through the crowd of the
Kohanim. This is one of the most virulent examples of anti-Semitism
in the movie, a deed which implies the Kohanim, and thus all Jews,
are evil.

After a good
long beating, the nearly dead and bloody Jesus is dragged out to the
raised platform next to Pontius Pilate who says to the Jews, "Is
this not enough?" to which the hook nosed Jewish leader says,
crucify him! The Roman leader then washes his own hands in a vessel
of water in front of everyone (a symbolic gesture indicating he is
not to be considered the one who made the decision), then says to
his men, do as they [the Jews] wish. Upon hearing this the crowd of
Jews explodes in cheers. They spit on Jesus, and again resume their
mantra, crucify him! Pontius Pilate is seen as an innocent pawn who
tries to do the right thing until a mob of Jews force him.

Next scene is
Jesus carrying a large wooden cross up a very long series of steps
in Jerusalem. The 40 minutes of him dragging the cross is nothing
more than one long beating scene which Mel Gibson created into an
orgy of carnage. During the plight of dragging the cross, Jesus is
continually spit on, pelted with stones and screamed at by Jews. As
Jesus is thrash upon by the Romans, the camera cuts to a scene of
a Kohan riding in the lead of the procession on an ass. After a while,
the attitudes shifted. An almost dead Jesus continued to drag the
cross, but for every Roman that looked at Jesus with a bit of remorse,
there were two Jews who looked at him with scorn. Though some of the
lay people in the city streets seemed to scream for and in support
of Jesus, the film depicted a large amount of Jews being whipped into
submission by the Romans for attempting to stone him.

While Jews screamed
for his death in a mountain top circus-like atmosphere, the Romans
put him on a cross, driving nails through his hands and legs. As the
cross is erected upright, the Romans governor looks on with regret
at the bloody near-death man. The film flashes back to a dream sequence,
a flashback to his sermon on the Mount of Olives where Jesus proselytizes
prospective followers. Earlier he had a flashback about the Roman
Catholic usage's of bread and wine as representations of his body
and soul. In this scene Jesus calls the New Testament the "Brit
Hadasha" (a term missionaries use to make the New Testament sound
Jewish!). These flashbacks throughout the movie could be titled "missionary
tactics" because each one serves just such a purpose. They add
nothing to the film, but could be considered excellent missionary
platforms.

As Jesus languishes
on the cross, the Kohan tells him, if you are the Mashiach, get yourself
down from that cross, then proceeds to scornfully laugh at him. Mary
of course is watching all this, weeping from just out of view. She
helps get the Romans to give Jesus some water, then kisses Jesus'
feet. At this point the Roman soldiers are looking up at Jesus in
awe, while the Kohan is shown with his back to Jesus, riding down
the hill on his ass.

The film ends
with Jesus on the cross, and a Roman spearing him in the side. As
he is speared, blood and water come out of him, and the Roman who
speared him bows down as in homage to his victim. Suddenly the sky
gets dark, and an earthquake occurs. The camera brings you back to
Jerusalem, where the courtyard of the Jews is heavily damaged, and
the Kohanim are shown screaming in sadness and anger. The film cuts
back to Jesus who screams, then the camera pulls back fast to a demon
screaming. From a Christian perspective, it seems the Kohanim are
screaming because they have been defeated by Jesus. The demon screams
because he has been defeated by Jesus as well. The film then goes
to the next and final scene, that of a perfectly healed Jesus sitting
in a cave, next to an empty body bag, the only scars on him are the
nail holes in his hands.

This movie is
a putrid attempt at demonstrating the Christian story of the crucifixion.
The movie was not even based on the facts as written in the Christian
Bible, but a combination of Christian stories all rolled up into a
story of bloodbath and a story of blame. Stereotypes are employed,
the fat Jew with his dark face and hook nose, the Roman with his excellent
physique and large nostrils, and the Anglo looking Jesus, too tall
for living in Judea 2000 years ago, a man with a perfectly straight
nose and beautiful eyes. Mel Gibson used rabid exaggeration and bloodlust
to develop this film. His over development of the story, using larger-than-life
action sequences amplifying the Jewish hatred from a subjective viewpoint
has help him succeed in making the worst anti-Jewish propaganda film
since Adolph Hitler was in office.

"Pharisees"
were mentioned in the film's subtitles, but the "Sadducees"
were never mentioned. Sadducees were largely of the rich priestly nobility,
and would have had control during this time period. During the brief
periods of greater political independence from Rome, they had control
of the Temple, and functioned as rulers of the Jewish community. Even
during the puppet regime of King Herod members of the Sadduceans tended
to ally themselves with the Roman royalty much more than the Pharisees.
Sadducees were traditionalists, to whom the complex of religious and
administrative machinery centred on the Temple had more significance
than messianic, apocalyptic, or prophetic statements which might endanger
the status quo. The Pharisees, on the other hand, whose leaders were
on the whole learned scribes, regarded the interpretation of the Torah
as an ongoing activity, and its understanding by the masses of the people
a priority.